| BON
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| BON (Book of the North)
was conceived after Herbert saw the Book of Ireland
in Dublin, a collaboration between Irish writers and
artists in the form of a single vellum book, faithfully
produced according to the model of the Book
of Kells. Part of the impact on him was this re-deploying
of the physical form of the early book: a sense that such
books were the new technology of their era, Dark Age
computers. At the the time he was Northern Arts Literary
Fellow, working in an area where the Lindisfarne
Gospels had been produced -- not so much Silicon
Valley as Illuminated Estuary. Herbert thought it would
be interesting to put together a new kind of 'book',
where writers and artists from Stockton to Beadnell, from
Allenheads to North Shields, rethought the page as
screen, and pigment as pixels. Those involved would like
to think he knows better now. A number of poets, novelists and visual artists met, chatted, argued, laughed, emailed each other endlessly, received training in website construction, digital recording, image editing,computer animation. There was an exhibition (BONgoing); there was a performance (Songs from the Drowned Book), there was a radio programme/webcast (Radio Free East Shields). There were many brilliant ideas, most of which remain in advance of the technology, and some that just remain hare-brained. And finally there was the CD which could with just a click be in your hand. Order your copy from the New Writing North website for a mere £ . It is the minimal version, the Occam Mix, the had-to-be-edited-down high-and-lowlights. It is an ice-cube from the tip of the berg that sank a thousand ships. Inside are: subterranean guests of the Throat Hotel; crackling bootlegs from the Bontempi label; out-takes from a lost film industry of the leadmines; charms for blind pit-ponies and invocations that raise the unread. As Yeats might have said: click softly. |
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